Six Flags Great America

[Calicoastin05]

I had the pleasure of visiting this park yesterday, and even though it was packed we had a great time. We got on every roller coaster, Roaring Rapids, Yankee Clipper, and some flats. For some reason you dont hear much about this park it is very under-rated. Every single ride in the park was open running capacity, it was clean, beautifully landscaped, well themed, and operations were top notch. I cant remember what we did but thanks to the Flash Pass gold system we were able to ride all the coasters (though Deja Vu and Ragin Cajun dont use them, so it was a bit of a wait for those). Here are the ride reviews in no particular order:

 

Demon - 3 trains

We got in line for Demon and the line looked huge, we thought it would be an hour or so. While waiting in the line we noticed the black train go by, then the yellow train go by, then we had to look twice but we saw a red train go by less than a minute later. THREE TRAINS on a short loopscrew coaster, are you kidding me? The line flowed like water and the coaster crew was fast. We were on in less than 20 minutes.

The ride is better than expected, the corkscrews were rough but the drop is really steep and had great airtime for such a small coaster. Also the tunnell and theming were cool: especially the song and flames on the control booths and rocks all over the ride.

 

DejaVu

We waited about 45 minutes for this and it did not break down once. The crew was very into it, spieling over and over again during the cycle "When you board do not lower your green harness, leave it in the air or you will slow everything down!" The load times were decent for such a crappy designed train. It is just like SFMMs, incredible! We went in row 8B which is the back and it was smooth as glass, and intense. The vertical drops are crazy and going backwards through the course is awesome.

 

Viper - 2 trains

While waiting in line we noticed that it looked a lot like Psyclone but this is a damn good woodie. 2 trains and not stacking the line moved fast also. It was extremely smooth and had ejector airtime over some of the hills. The station is very well themed also.

 

Raging Bull - 3 trains

Holy mother of trim brake. The trim brake on the camelback hill was a bit excessive, but the first drop made up for it. Back row that drop has some awesome air. The rest of the ride was good but not top 10 material, it certainly has an interesting twisty layout for a hyper coaster also. This was also running 3 trains and had a pretty fast coaster crew.

 

Batman The Ride - 2 trains

The first thing I noticed about the ride that not only along with being the first, this is by far my favorite of the Batman rides. The setting is over a pond and forest, gotta love it. The queues are extremely well themed, the garden area was amazing and it even said Bolliger & Mabillard on the sign. The cop car is there just like MM, but the drain tunnell and Batcave are better themed IMO and it had some awesome themed music blasting along with TV monitors playing clips of flying through Gotham City. This was my overall favorite coaster in the park. Line moved fast also.

 

Superman Ultimate Flight - 2 trains

Overall a good ride though somewhat underwhelming. The pretzel loop is crazy in the front row, you get a pop of weightlesness then a huge rush of positive g's stapeling you. One of the best elements of any coaster. It may just have well ended after that though. The horseshoe elements are okay but nothing special. Line moved decent, there was a seat that was taped off and people kept trying to sit in it anyway then they had to re-open the gates. What was annoying is the operator would say over the speakers "This train only has 3 seats in row 4" and people would still try to sit in the taped off seat, morons.

 

Ragin Cajun - 5 or 6? cars

This was one of the surprises of the day. it is pretty intense and spun like crazy. I came off with brusies on my right arm due to all the spinning and hitting the side of the car. The crew was one of the more interesting ones ive seen: they were getting cars out very quickley but the line still moved painfully slow due to it being a mouse and the fact that they also dont allow 4 people in a car because they said maintenence didnt want them to anymore. They were saying "Opa!" over the microphone, and tried to get the whole line to join in, it was hilarious! This one guy started dancing and everyone cheered him on.

 

Vertical Velocity

Oh yeah, minimal wait front row with the help of our buddy the Flash. This was also a surprise, I didnt hear good things about impulses and expected it to be a shorter version of STE, but it was much better. Launch isnt near the power of Xcelerator or TTD but still pretty strong and the brake on the back tower scared the crap out of us. Also I thought we were gonna fly off the front spiral, awesome ride.

 

Iron Wolf - 2 trains

Ive got big shoulders and it beat me up pretty bad. The turns are all very tight, fast, and intense; much more so than Batman. Maybe if it were a floorless I wouldve enjoyed it more, just not standing up .

 

American Eagle - 4 trains

Theres something very nostalgic about this ride, its nice to see a park actually racing their wooden coaster also! The crew was energetic and had racing spiels, "Whos gonna win is it gonna be the red side of blue side!?" We rode on the Blue side and we ended up winning as it looked like the Red side was braked more and got screwed . The actual ride was okay, some air here and there.

 

Whizzer - 3 trains

Once again I was amazed to see another roller coaster running 3 trains and the line moved pretty fast. The actual ride is great! Back is definitley the place to be, theres one helix that is really close to the ground that caught me off guard. When we were riding at night a bunch of fireworks starting going off in front of us so it was a nice ride up the lift .

 

Shows

Showstoppin' in the Grand Music Hall is very good, the choreagraphy and dance moves are very well done even though a lot of it was borderline sketchy sexual wise! We heard bad things about Operation Spygirl from most of the people in the park so we decided to not waste time since we wanted to ride everything. Starlight Spectacular show and nighttime parade was great! Definitley the best parade of any Six Flags park i've ever seen (it was starting just as we got off of Whizzer). The overall "streetmosphere" of the park is good also. Costumed charectors were bopping around here and there along with random people themed to their area (Jester in Mardi Gras, Ranger person in Yukon Teritorry) and there was even a drum band walking around Yankee Harbor playing in front of Yankee Clippers line when we were over there, we later saw them in Orleans Place in front of Condor. There was also the "Spirit of America" show in front of the Carousel when the park opens along with a family that gets to ride Carousel first and watch the show from the upper level. It was a nice touch.

 

Flats

We went on Revolution which had a bit of a wait but nothing bad, Condor which was a walk on, Sky Tower which was a walk on, Orbit which was a two cycle wait, Triple Play which was a walk on, Whirligig which was a walk on, and Giant Drop which had like a 10 minute wait at the time (running all of the cars). We got in line for King Chaos but it broke down and the operators said that they thought it might be awhile while maintenence worked on it. Every single ride in the park was open including the flats and water rides which we went on Roaring Rapids just cause it used FP, and it was, Roaring Rapids nothing special. We skipped Loggers and opted for Yankee Clipper instead since the other GA doesnt have it anymore and I liked it better than Loggers, the straight drop felt more like a coaster and less like a ride thats there just to get you wet.

 

Recap

We got on a lot of the rides in the morning and the park became extremely packed as the day went on and we got Gold Flashpass which really helped us out. The park is very good and handling crowds, every single ride in the park including all flats (theres a lot of them) and water rides were open running their max capacity. The landscaping around the park is very nice and really fits their respective areas, the food was expensive and decent but thats the nature of the industry I guess.

[Sean Menefee]

Great TR. My friends and I were out early last week for two days, and really enjoyed our visit again. This is my favorite park in the Six Flags chain, and really shows how good our "Knott's so Great America" really used to be, before Paramount ripped out all the classic charm.

 

BTW American Eagle has a queue line from hell that never ends.

[kraxleRIDAH]

A very typical review of Six Flags Great America -- one of the chain's better performing parks.

 

Nice TR!

[mcjaco]

You missed the best flat in the park. Fiddler's Fling.

 

Nice report. Was the trim on the helix of the Eagle on? It was off a few weeks ago.

[benzo41190]

You should have ridden American Eagle Red. The red side is a lot better and has amazing airtime in the front seat. The blue side is rough and has minimal airtime, just floater.

 

SFGAm is really good at capacity. It seems like they will always have 2 trains on Raging Bull and Whizzer.

 

Also, I really like the DeJa Vu spiel..."Are you ready to fly high, loop and twist with nothing under you but the sky"..."then you have to do it all backwards".

[BamBam36]

I'm SOOO pissed that Deja Vu wasn't open when I went. It looks really good. Glad you got to ride it.

[rollermonkey]

I'm glad to hear you had a good time at the park.

When were you there? I ask because we've only had three trains on Eagle the past couple weekends, and Batman's second train is currently being rehabbed.

 

I was amazed to learn that we give the most rides of all the parks in the chain, despite having the shortest operating schedule!

 

[resumes lurking]

[Guest]

Batman's second train is currently being rehabbed

Both trains have finished replacing restraints....its been back in 2 train op for awhile now.

 

I was amazed to learn that we give the most rides of all the parks in the chain, despite having the shortest operating schedule!

Yeah its not even close either. Best ride uptime & best capacity on our rides (I was shown the figures, Raging Bull had a few hundred thousand more riders than Nitro last year).

 

They were saying "Opa!" over the microphone, and tried to get the whole line to join in, it was hilarious! This one guy started dancing and everyone cheered him on.

OPA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[easytoremember]

I had a similar experience when my brother and I went to Great America. We were at the park for about four hours(late afternoon to closing) and we were able to ride all of the coasters without a flashpass. Although none of the rides really blew me away, the opperations sure did.